FEATURED STORIES
By Carl Hiaasen
In the Republican race for governor, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum finds himself trailing a candidate who has more baggage than J-Lo on a camel safari.
By Steve Bousquet
Related: Greer wants to delay civil suit; Republicans say no way
Crist, legislators maneuver over oil spill special session
St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Related: State officials reluctant to close Gulf waters off to fishing
On July 4 In Spill Country, Pondering America
NPR
EDITORIAL CARTOON OF THE WEEK
Florida Today
FLORIDA POLITICS
By Rene Stutzman
Related: Greer-Johnson phone call is intriguing piece of Tallahassee theater
Ex-GOP chair's defense to call attorney general as witness
Florida Capital News
After utility commission purge, is it time for consumer uprising?
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Maybe you missed it, but something truly outrageous happened last week.
By Howard Troxler
The purge is complete. Four of the five members of our state Public Service Commission who voted against raising electric rates in January have now been canned by the Legislature.
POLITICAL RACES
By Beth Reinhard
Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene is pitching himself to Florida voters as a successful businessman who knows how to create jobs.
By Lloyd Dunkelberger
If you thought the debate over health care ended when the federal government approved a major overhaul to the system earlier this year, think again.
By William March
You may never have heard of Peggy Land, unless you're a Tampa Democratic political insider.
By Beth Reinhard
Committing the political equivalent of a home invasion in broad daylight, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Greene stumped Monday afternoon in the needy Miami neighborhood represented in Congress by rival Kendrick Meek and his mother for almost two decades.
By Aaron Sharockman
Rick Scott reported an eye-popping net worth of more than $218 million last month in forms filed with the state Division of Elections.
By Adam C. Smith
Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott is running as an outsider untainted by political or government experience.
By Michael C. Bender
Limp and blue, Sidney Miller miraculously gasped for air and spontaneously cried when she was born four months early in 1990.
By Catherine Whittenburg
Attorney General Bill McCollum has won the support of a social conservative who once blasted him as pandering to the gay community.
By Adam C. Smith
They lurk, cameras at the ready, during every meeting of the Cabinet, three statewide candidates in their crosshairs.
BALLOT INITIATIVES
By Greg Gimbert
This July 4th we have an extra reason to honor our Declaration of Independence and our Constitutional right to petition - Amendment 4 is finally on the ballot.
By Aaron Deslatte
It's a fight over party control of the levers of government that's as old as American democracy.
ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY
By Marc Caputo
Related: Is BP rejecting skimmers to save money on Gulf oil cleanup?
Related: In Pensacola Beach, business plunges amid oil crisis
In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP publicly touted its expert oil clean-up response, but it quietly girded for a legal fight that could soon embroil hundreds of attorneys, span five states and last more than a decade.
By Dara Kam
Related: Official downplays forecast of oil on South Florida beaches
The nation's top environmental regulator said she would not swim in the waters off an oil- and tar-saturated beach at a Panhandle park and advised beachgoers to trust their noses and eyes when deciding whether to plunge into the gulf.
By David A. Fahrenthold
How dead is the Gulf of Mexico? It is perhaps the most important question of the BP oil spill -- but scientists don't appear close to answering it despite a historically vast effort.
By Scott Finn
You might have heard about the ongoing effort to dig up hundreds of sea turtle nests along the Gulf and move them out of harm's way.
By Nathan Crabbe
BP is receiving the blame for a shortage of Florida oysters, even though the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has yet to reach the state's major oyster beds.
By Christine Stapleton
Despite the warnings of Dick Cheney, George Will, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, the Russians are not drilling for oil off Cuba.
By Gina Presson
With the spill in the Gulf highlighting the dangers of American reliance on fossil fuels, some see a resurgence on the horizon for nuclear power, which could have major implications for Florida's economy and environment.
Unstoppable oil dispirits Gulf coast
Tampa Tribune
LGBT
By Gary White
Felicia Pecora said she hadn't yet found herself when she enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve at age 22.
EDUCATION
By Leslie Postal
Pearson, Florida's testing contractor, could owe the state another $11.7 million for the late delivery of FCAT scores -- on top of the $3 million already demanded, state officials estimate.
The Associated Press
The U.S. Department of Education will award Florida $170.2 million to turn around its persistently low achieving schools.
By Robin Williams Adams
The price tag keeps increasing for public higher education.
JOBS, BUDGET, AND ECONOMY
By Josh Hafenbrack
Faced with financial strain on its $110 billion retirement system, Florida has protected the pension fund - and those who receive benefits from it - and instead passed the increased cost to taxpayers.
By Sydney P. Freedberg
The man who oversees $134 billion of public money has recommended investing some of it in companies run by friends or business associates, and he doesn't see any conflict in doing that.
By Bill Thompson
In what might be the one issue that could unite anti-Wall Street liberals, angry tea partiers, laissez-faire libertarians and suspicious conspiracy theorists, Congress is close to forcing open the books of the nation's central bank.
By David Ball
Quick quiz: What does Florida have in common with Las Vegas?
HEALTH AND SENIORS
By Brett Ader
According to a report released Thursday by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission, 5 percent of all deaths in 2009 were attributable to prescription drug use, far outnumbering those caused by illegal substances.
By Jim Saunders
Medicare patients and taxpayers will save more than one-third on home-health equipment costs in South and Central Florida next year because of a new competitive-bidding program, federal officials announced Thursday.
By Fred Tasker
If millions of patients across America have electronic medical records they can access 24/7 by punching a code into a home computer or BlackBerry, how safe are those records from identity thieves?
Editorial
Critics of health care reform such as Attorney General Bill McCollum need to quit claiming that it will overburden state finances by opening Medicaid to a flood of new poor and low-income recipients.
CIVIL RIGHTS, PEACE AND SOCIAL ISSUES
Editorial
On July 4, we celebrate not only our nation's founding and freedom but also this ringing avowal: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," wrote Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence.
Editorial
Politically and in other ways, President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush are polar opposites.
JUSTICE AND THE COURTS
By Bill Kaczor
The new chief justice of the state Supreme Court created the Florida Innocence Commission on Friday, saying it will study issues dealing with wrongful convictions over the next two years.
By Kris Wernowsky
Gov. Charlie Crist wants to appoint a replacement for Escambia County Judge David Ackerman, a brief recently filed with the Florida Supreme Court says.
Editorial
No need to sugarcoat it. Elena Kagan's Supreme Court confirmation hearings were not particularly edifying.
